Separation is kind of just an illusion. We create separation between things, but reality is one thing that you are your experience. Hey, this is Remco. Thanks for clicking on a video. This is my brand new podcast called Face the Ace, in which I talked to the most interesting people in poker and go a little deeper into the topics you most care about. Enjoy. I have a fellow recent dad with me millions and earnings, written books. He's done it all, but we still have tons of talk about even though I've known this guy for such a long time. Andrew Lichtenberger, Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you. Just to start off with what has today been like in dad life? I won the latest chapter. Well, I just got back to Vegas last night, my wife, myself, my brother, and my daughter at one am last night, so we were in New York. So today was unpacking, getting things sort of back in order. Yeah, I mean it's always a new adventure. We were setting up some pack and plays for the baby so we can have somewhere to put her because she's getting a lot more mobile now. I don't know how old is your. My son is turning one at the end of May. Okay, Yeah, so you're a few months ahead of us. You know what that's like. Yeah, yeah, ye're pretty quick. They are pretty quick. They're very resourceful. It's just awesome to have noticed the shift in the way I approach life just by having another human involved. Oh yeah, But I feel as though, out of all the people that I'll interview on the show, you are probably mentally prepared for every type of scenario because you've been so involved with mindfulness, You've been so involved with sort of learning more about yourself and the universe, to just put it that way, Maybe there's many universes we don't even know. But would you say that any of the things that you've gone through on a personal level have sort of set you up for success to become a father or is it perhaps something so different that even you could not have anticipated how that would feel and sort of develop. That's a really question. I do think that my I would say, willingness to be open and just sort of accept the uncertainty of life and the adventure that's naturally present in it does prepare me for the Yeah, just unusual things that happen and will probably increasingly occur as a parent. But I will say that I probably over exaggerated in my head how different it was going to be because I found it striking in the first Like, let's just say month, how many things were the same, Like I was totally prepared for my entire life to come crashing down and just something totally new to happen. It was like, oh, well, I'm still me, my wife's still her, we still live in the same house, you know what I mean. So I guess a bit of both. But it's been really fun and yeah, I just melt every time she smiles and laughs, and it's it's just incredible. I'm just loving it. We could do like POGs podcast, so we can go deep on that. That's probably worth another a couple of chapters and seasons as the years go on, so we'll keep every when you're ready, Yeah, exactly, we can totally do that. But there there are sort of a larger topic at hand that ties into the uniqueness of your position in poker from the way I see it, because obviously you're very much involved on the on the solver side, the studying side, and trying to become the best possible player, and then you have this highly contrasting sort of look on life and and and approach to life, and you know, the yoga of poker and the camp set. We can talk about all that stuff, but to me, it almost feels like so polarizing in how those things can be so different and that spectrum could be so wide. Why do you think it is that you fit into both those sort of boxes, if you will, because I don't think you could find many people that that that fit those both. Yeah, well, I I appreciate you acknowledging that. I do recognize that it can appear to be very contrasted, and in a sense it is. But the way I see it is that they're two sides of the same coin, and I often liken it to the left and right side of the brain, like one is more logical, rigid, structured, and the other is more creative, imaginative, intuitive, And I think that the solvers present an opportunity to create frameworks and understand, within a very sort of rigid framework, what strategies will look like and how people can or should play given those parameters. But the reality is that in poker, you don't always get the luxury of having those handed to you on a silver platter. In some cases you will, and that's you know, nice, I suppose, or easy as it were. But the reason I find of this more fluid way, woo way or chemist type of approach to be valuable is that when you're navigating uncertainty in poker, like you really do, kind of have to embrace it and just sort of figure it out on the fly, and the structure helps, but it's not always going to be the answer, and that's where I think intuition comes into play. You did a podcast recently with Chance Cornith where you specifically mentioned Sean Winter and how he does weird stuff if you want to just put it very plainly, Yeah, but you also said more often than not, he is right, even though it should be random. Why do you use him as an example and not yourself? Do you feel like your intuition needs needs a lot more work. Do you see him as a very intuitive person, as something that he naturally possesses. How do you look at that? Well? I do think he is very intuitive. I think he's probably leaned into it to a greater extent than myself or other players over time. I think that's an interesting kind of topic generally, is how much are players willing to lean into it. Like Prime Ivy is sort of the example that comes to mind as someone who was just very deep in there. And I also think that because I've had this kind of funny thought like, let's just say, irrespective of what people believe, let's just say, hypothetically, there is some Yogi and the Hamalias meditating right now, and if we just brought him in this state of zen to the Pokerro studio, would his intuition actually like accomplish anything or would the lack of understanding of the structure of the game hold him back? And I'm inclined to believe that the latter is more likely. And that's where I think that, you know, going back to like a Prime Ivy, he probably didn't have as much of a theoretical basis. He would have obviously had a deep understanding of the game, but as you know, the industry has changed and more ideas become commonplace and more access to information is present. I do feel that intuition, it's not that you have to temper it by but I think it's boosted by a theoretical understanding that one has and the topic of like how deep can you go with it? So I don't know. It's something I've thought a lot about. I think there's always room for improvement with anything strategically or intuitively, and I just always am trying to improve in that right lect. But I find that so fascinating because, as some people know, I've lost a lot of weight over time. And this is relevant because a lot of times when I talk to people about health and lifestyle changes, the biggest thing that I like to focus on is that you shouldn't be majoring in the miners as far as don't focus on the details, do the big things right. To me, it almost feels like the miners are that intuition, that last little push, the last little extra. If you're not doing the majors right, which is the studying and the theory based and the fundamentals, you never even have to worry about the intuition because that is sort of like the cherry on top that you develop over time because of repetition and and and and you know, talent and all those kinds of things. Do you think that people can sort of start to tap into that sort of final set of additional skills or perhaps intuition once they have that solid foundation, as you mentioned, you know, the yogi probably wouldn't do that well at the book table. Yeah, that's an interesting it's an interesting way to look at it. I'm inclined to think that intuition has more I don't know if I want to say more value or more relevant than it being like a final push. I feel that it's always valuable, especially as it pertains to just executing at the table, irrespective of what level you're playing at. But yeah, I'm not I'm not sure. I mean, I can't really quantify it, and it's also maybe a bit challenging to speak generally on it because I am going to be biased by my own experience with it, and it is something that's very authentic to me. Feel very inclined towards it being something that is not just the final push, that it's kind of always finding a way. For example, like with solver strategies, so many decisions are mixed, and furthermore, the models are fairly fragile in a lot of cases, and if you make a few assumptions, then they'll shift dramatically. And you make more larger assumptions and they'll shift even more dramatically. And I think that that's where I see intuition has a lot of value in being able to make those adjustments without having a sort of premeditated approach to a spot. When you think back to when poker was easy, so to say, right when talent and hard work and having a few friends you can discuss hands with was enough to really do very well. Do you think that you're general mindset then could have could have been like applied to be successful in the current state of the game, or do you think that the entire progression you went through was necessary to still be successful now? Hmmm? I think yeah, I mean I think I could. I could still be successful if I didn't change that much, but it would be rocky road, that's for sure. But I did not always But there was a certain point. I can't tell you exactly when it was, but I have valued for a long time, like the understanding of structure and the willingness to deviate from it when appropriate. But yeah, I mean, in the early days, having like any structure, even just being able to sort of conceptualize what the fundamentals of poker might look like and how to build strategies around these, you know, cohesive or coherent ideas. That was such a huge leg up back then, and that was something that was largely innate for me. I guess I could say I got lucky with it, but it's just sort of probably influence from my parents in some sense, and just sort of the game or brain that I have. Right, But is it like talent and intuition and perhaps maybe some some pattern recognition to where you know, just through repetitions, even though you're not you know, studied in like a clinical sense, you're improving almost like on a daily basis, even though you might not be conscious of that improvement. Yeah. I mean, I think anytime you're immersed in something, you're probably going to continue to improve as long as you're open, right and reflective of what's happening. Right. So, then in that sort of early era, were there key moments you remember or key people that you met that in hindsight turned out to be sort of pivotal towards your continued growth in the game, like instances or people that contributed, And if you have examples of that. Yeah, I mean the one example that comes to mind is I was playing an online session, which was you know, part for the course. I was playing probably almost every day, and I just remember I had the spot I had Ace Queen on an ACE high board. Maybe it was a three bet pot, maybe it was a single race pot. I can't really remember, but it was some like ACE nine deuce rainbow, just some dry spot. I just felt like bad about it, and I was like, huh, this is weird. I, you know, previous to this moment, because this was somewhat of a watershed experience for me, I just didn't really either have the awareness of what these intuitive signals would be or care to delve into them. But I checked it back and then I ended up losing a smaller pot than I would have and my opponent had Ace king. I was like, Okay, that's pretty interesting, and then I just sort of kept an eye out for when that similar signal would come. And I guess over the years, I've valued what those signals look and feel like, and I have oscillated. There's been times where I feel like I basically I have gas lit myself into thinking that like that's not real, and then I have to like touch the hot stove and realize that that doesn't feel good. So it's been a journey. But yeah, I mean it's it's fascinating because I do think that I was more naturally predisposed to just like a purely logical approach. As far as people I met over the years who would have maybe assisted in that, gosh, I mean really so many people. I can't pick any out in particular, but from the generation I came up in before solvers, there was no I mean, there was some convergence around ideas, but there was a lot. Yeah, there's a lot more that was just subjects to interpretation because yeah, everyone was just sort of figuring it out of the fly. Yeah, and I appreciate. I just added that I really did appreciate when they came out, although I had some early resistance because I was like, well, it's kind of nice to be able to quantify these things that we've sort of not known for a while and ruminated on. Soh yeah, I just thought it was cool when it happened. It's fun to like speculate on this because in a way, becoming a really good poker player has never been easier because the access to tools is there's so many. If you wanted, you could study for a whole year before even playing a single handed poker and then showing up being well prepared. But back when you came up, it was almost like, you know, a bunch of young kids would win like satellites to PCA and epts, and they would all meet and they would all find common ground. They're all like, you know, under the age of twenty and become instant best friends. And that sort of group pushed themselves to a very high level, very quickly in relation to the field totally. How do you look at those two different ways to reach the top, Because you know, the case can be made that the access now is what's crucial to reach the top, but also it's harder than ever because the competition is so strong. Yes, it's a good point. The access to information is just going to be helpful if someone's like newer to poker, And I do think it's always been a possibility to start from scratch and make it to the highest stakes. And I would even add that because there is a more ubiquitous understanding of poker theory and you can just figure things out if you want to. To me, that, by contrast, highlights the importance of intuition and execution and all the soft skills that go along with understanding the structure of the game, because not that everybody will have the same understanding. That's clearly not the case. There's so much nuance to it, and the game tree is huge, But if people are generally converging around similar ish ideas, it's like, well, what will give you an adage? What is like the next frontier so to speak? And to me it is all those soft skills. From the guys you've seen come up in like, let's say, less five years that you know are playing in the Pocco studio or you know you see him at like big final tables across the country or even internationally. Can you pinpoint to something having played against those players that sort of has given them the opportunity to reach the top? Do you see something in their playing style, or in their you know, social skills, or in perhaps something you know from talking to them that that sort of sets them apart from perhaps others from their generation who have not made it. Yeah, I mean the first name that comes to mind is Jesse Lanis. I think he started kind of competing in like mid to higher stakes tournaments around COVID. You know when I first met him. Not trying to burche hate on the gorilla, I love him, but I was skeptical. I mean, he's just playing like pretty different than most people. And that was probably around the time that I was stuck in a more rigid kind of mindset. But I mean, he has great soft skills, There's just no two ways about it, and he it is just a great card player. At the end of the day. That's actually really what matters because we're playing cards. So I do think that just as much as it was true back in the day when we were winning PCA packages and whatnot, it really does always come down like poker is not like a multiple choice like quiz. It's a dynamic environment where you have to be willing to trust yourself and make bizarre sort of moves that might only make sense in a very unique context. And he does clearly trust himself and is willing to make those plays, and that's clearly benefited him a lot over the last few years. Is it possible to learn from a player by watching them play or talking in hands with them if they are so unconventional? And I think back of a memory that I have where I believe was Patrick Antonius trying to do a training video and it was really funny because you know, he clearly knew what to do, but he didn't really know one hundred percent how to sort of lay it out in that sort of way that you know, you guys would do on your training sites. Not to throw shade at Patrick, of course, it's one of those things where, you know, intuition, like the way you described Ivy for example, or Sean Winter, sometimes they do things that might not be the common line, and Jesse Loanis is probably. A good example. But back to my question, are there learning opportunities in that even though it might be a little bit of you know, sort of wide magic type situation. Yeah, No, it's a really good question. I think it highlights something interesting about intuition that it will give you a signal and it sometimes is up to you to trust it or not trust it, but then to sort of back engineer it and figure out like why did this make sense in context? And I think that in the case of you know, learning from someone like Jesse or the Patrick training video, it's going to be a little bit more cryptic because there's not as clearly find sort of parameters and rules as to why they're operating. But in general, I mean all winning players are going to converge around some similar ideas. An example I like about this is you're familiar with Mikhael Tall. He was like a prolific chess player, Yeah, and he was known for his like elaborate sacrifices and exotic sort of play style. But to get to that level, you're going to draw a lot of games against gms and play fairly sound in a lot of spots. And I think that like Prime, Adamo or Fade or even like, there was a lot of a lot of hype around some of these. I think exotic is a good word to describe the plays they would make, But most of the time they're just playing like good standard poker. They're just willing to push the boundaries in some cases, and those you know that will make a big impact on one's win, right, especially when it goes well over a short stretch. Do you think that for those types of players like Lonus, Fade or Odamo, do you think that them get to a certain level of fame it gives them an extra edge because of the perception of their play now becoming a factor where people anticipate them playing a certain style. And then of course the I guess X factor being can they adjust and profit from that. Yeah, And I was going to mention that I think, yes, it definitely will help, and especially if they're willing to sort of discern how players, whether you know, pros or recreationals, will feel like they're doing something that they may not be doing. I think that's something I heard. Joe Kata mentioned this at one point that after he won the main event, he went on like a prolonged sort of downswing where he didn't realize that he just had to play like he was an old man and he'd just constantly get paid. I think having an understanding of, yeah, just how people perceive you, like a meta table image would definitely be necessary in those cases where you're on such a rip. So for yourself, playing a lot in an environment where you play against the same players all the time, would you say that because of your intuition and the way that you are able to tap into it or trust it, or you know, sometimes that sort of wave hits, would you say it's an advantage to you to play a lot against the same people because it might strengthen those feelings because you get to play against a lot of the same players over and over again, where you know you might even like subconsciously pick up on things towards certain opponents. Yeah, I mean I do think again, like just repetition will be helpful in that respect. It's maybe tempered by the fact that those are primarily great players. Yeah, so yeah, I mean it depends, like what the other group would be if that's the control group, is the other group also great players or are they like unknown? Because I would do better against the unknown and for sure even with less data, and I would get tricked sometimes, right, Like, I mean, that is a cool thing that I think makes poker popular. Someone can come off the street and just you know, trick an Ivy or an Agrando or whoever because they just you know, they just have an erratic style. But yeah, over the long run, you know, there'll be adjustments and clarity had how much. Sort of self awareness do you have to do you have to bring to the table when you're playing in a field where you know you are the most known player at your table, do you have to try and learn whether they know who you are and does that help your game? Or do you sort of have to make perhaps general adjustments because you have to assume that people might want to, you know, tell their friend that they've bluffed luck a Chewi. That's a great question. I will admit that I don't think this is something that I've done the absolute best job of over the course of my career. I mean, I do think I've done well enough at that, but I think that different people perceive me differently, and I don't always totally recognize how that might look. I guess strategically I sort of figure it out or get close enough to what the answer would be or how they would play in a spot. But yeah, I've often been surprised at things people say, like comments and passing. Like one that comes to mind is many people over the years have mentioned they feel I'm like very like mathematic or almost robotic, and I'm like, okay, I can see why they would think that, but I don't necessary like I mean, I do love numbers. And my wife would probably laugh at me telling you this, like She's like, why would you be surprised by that? But it's just because of my own internal process around the game and that I am willing to really rely on intuition in key moments but in all moments really, so in a way. You're you've all correct if I'm wrong, but it feels like you're saying that you don't necessarily make adjustments because that's almost like baked into your style because of the roots being in the in the math. That sort of pushes you towards perhaps randomizing or making adjustments just because that's what the situation calls for. Well, I just think poker is inherently a game of adjusting. So places in which I would say I make adjustments would be more deviations based on ideally more concrete than sort of ephemeral data. But in spots where it is a mixed decision, then you can kind of go either way if your assumptions are accurate enough. And that's where I personally think intuition has a lot of value because it's like, well, if it's the same either way in the long run, well, your opponent has two cards in this spot. So if you can like quote unquote guess right, like, it's going to be worthwhile. How fast does the brain of someone at your level process these things as the hands is developing. How much of this is internal talk? How much of this is perhaps just appearing in front of you. I know people that have like a photographic memory, and they remember things very vividly. But I also know people that have like this very strong internal dialogue that sort of leads them down as a decision making process. What does it look like for you? Yeah, that's a great question to me. It's sort of it asks like, how does intuition work on an individual basis? I would say it's different day to day. It's sometimes different over the course of a day. I mean, I suppose it's a pretty well oiled machine at this point. There's plenty of room for improvement. I'm not entirely clairvoyant, to say the least, but I guess probably the physiological sensations are maybe most reliable in some cases. And sometimes it is like an inner dialogue, and that can also be very helpful, just a firm, kind of clear deck of like this is what you should be doing here. Do you, for example, memorize or reach back for memories on things you've studied while things are happening in the moment or is it more so almost like programmed to where you see something and it triggers like almost like an instinct where you know that the decision tree is going in a certain direction. Yeah, it's I will occasionally do the former in a spot where like, let's say I want to discern what a reasonable beat size would be with my range, for example, but for like a hand specific, combo specific type of play, I feel it's generally more the latter, where I think the value in understanding that structure is to feed the subconscious in understanding and then let the intuition just sort of take over and mandate how should this be coalesced and executed. So what would you give as advice to players who say I enjoy studying. I enjoy, you know, playing all those solver games. I have good scores on those things, but when I'm in the moment, I'm having a really hard time applying it. It's almost like the solver is like a video game. But then real poker is such a different environment to where whether it's recall or whether it's intuition is sort of lacking. So there could be a situation where frustration arises when you feel like you've done the work, but then applying it becomes like a whole new. Set of issues, totally extremely relatable for myself and many others. And I feel that this is kind of again where we get to that dichotomy of thinking versus feeling, because like the thought is well established, but the feel it's almost like it's been well, if not neglected, then sort of disparaged in a sense. It can almost be seen as a weakness in many cases. And I mean I suppose that although this wasn't like the main reason that I built the Chemist app, but even if you don't believe in extrasensory phenomena at all, just the idea that you would engage in an activity where you are not thinking and feeling, I think can be helpful because that's really, to me, the heart of the matter. You have knowledge and you're then in a spot where you have to take that knowledge in like a somewhat tense, pressure filled scenario and determine, like what am I going to do with this knowledge now? And I think that if you ignore the fact that I mean, in a lot of cases, I think people have emotional blocks, there's some inner conflict or friction or something that is preventing that progress and engaging in activities like meditation, mindfulness type of things. I mean, maybe the Chemist app can help with that if one is reflective, but I think just generally freeing up your ability to feel comfortable feeling and being to do what you feel is correct. I think something many people have mentioned and I would echo this sentiment is that you really do have to not be afraid to look stupid, right, because if you're afraid of looking stupid, you almost ensure the fact that you will look stupid. Yeah, it's just kind of like part of the game. And if you're willing to do that, that's like almost a superpower for. Those Just real quick for those that don't know about the camp st and we'll link it below as well, give a brief. Description of how it works. Yeah, so it's just a randomly shuffled deck of cards. You are then just feeling which card is coming next, and you're scored based on how well you guess. You get one point for the right suit, three for the rank, and thirteen for a perfect And as you go throughout the deck, it's not populating new cards, you're seeing them get grayed out, so you can never pick a card that has a yeo percent probability of being correct. Right, So it's kind of like intuition, but it's also kind of like a memorization game because of the. Remot cards knows you're seeing on the Street Seeker. Great app. Yeah, it's a very specific form of intuition, which Heartmouth Institute has designated as non local intuition. Some people would call it precognition. And I just think that's fascinating. The extent to which I'm capable of it, I'm not sure I've had enough experiences where I enjoyed doing it, and I was like, Okay, well, I'll just make the app. It was a fun project anyway, and maybe it'll, you know, be of interest to some people. My wife and I actually did a one day retreat event up at Mount Charleston. We got twenty people up there, and she's a Chinese medical doctor and she talked about how that framework in philosophy relate to intuition, and we did some exercises. She's taught some chigong and we had a great time. But I just think it's fascinating because I know that these are real phenomena, and I think poker is largely an industry that has not embraced them at the highest levels. But if you talk to like any casual player, they're pretty much all interested in it because of the way that you feel in hands, and it's just a significantly more common sentiment in smaller stakes games. And of course, the you know, counterpoint would be like, well, they're not experts, so like why would you value it? They're not playing at your level. But I think there's like something to be said for that that, you know, that's something that draws people to poker. Honestly, this, this whole, this whole concept and this topic, it raises so many interesting thoughts with me because my sort of very I guess, you know, I come from a small town, and like it's kind of like this rigid sort of structural thinking where you know, just you know, stay normal and just like don't don't start floating through the air with all your crazy thoughts. And that's like the first thing that comes to mind, like come on, what the hell are we talking about here? But then as you go deeper into the conversation, it becomes fascinating to the point where. Like, you you don't. Lose anything from from from trying this, and you don't there's no downside. So I certainly don't think so that's that's me saying that, right, But I believe, yeah. I believe that too, because it's always good to try and do new things and to like learn about stuff, even if you are. Skeptical about it. Sure, but I find it funny, especially in the context of poker. Yeah, because in a way it almost perfectly fits, but it also perfectly doesn't fit. Well, it doesn't fit because of the cultural boundaries or the Overton window or whatever you want to call it. But at the end of the day, I mean, I have had a decent amount of success in poker, and these are completely authentic things to me. And I'm like, well, you know, people can take it or leave it, but I'm not like lying about the stuff I experience. You know, someone could argue, like a Devil's advocate point that I'm not perceiving my own experience is accurately enough, which like fair enough. I don't really have a counterpoint to that. But I mean, when I look within, I'm like, Okay, well, what's going on? Like, yeah, I think that there's there's value in intuition and feeling, in understanding your emotions. I just I think of it broadly as soft skills. I find it sort of fun to think about when you and whenever this might have been along the journey, when you consider yourself successful or established or you know, now I have the means to live a life where I don't have to really, you know, grind day to day. Whatever that moment was, I wonder how much that sort of freedom had an impact on how you started thinking after that, and how much perhaps more rigid you were before that because the focus was more on becoming successful. Well, it's funny because to an extent, I'm not sure that that is a healthy perspective to have, and I'm not sure it's one that I even really do have, because I'm always concerned that when I go to play, I may just play terribly and make all kinds of blunders right, and then look like a fool. And I think that that's good, Like I like that poker has that you never have sort of like sailed off into the sunset and like you turn up works. I mean, it's from like a spiritual way where the freedom of having no immediate financial pressure for each next event or each next game you play, having that freedom to not be so tied to the day to day results gave you the room then to become more spiritual because you had time to open up your mind to all these things that you're involved with. Now, I would say that that's a fair point. But in a sense, the willingness to not feel thrown about by the daily results is what actually allows you to get there. You sort of have to become that person that's I don't know is sovereign the right term, or clear about who you are and what matters to you. Like if you really, I feel like you're doing your best, then you shouldn't care as much about the results. There's still going to be lessons to be learned in every case. But yeah, I think that sort of getting there first is what allows the physical aspect of things to arrive right or seamlessly at least. So was there a moment in time in your career where you felt as though, now I will sort of stay the course as a poker player because this is something that I enjoy, this is something that I see a future in. And on the contrary, have you had moments where you probably where you thought to yourself, is this what I want to do? Is this my pathway to to you know, living in a financially stable life, because the ups and downs are are never more obvious than when you talk to a poker player. Yeah, for sure, I think a lot of the very clear moments of this is something I'm definitely going to do. Happened early on, and then over time it's been a rocky road in certain cases, especially as I've pursued avenues and opportunities outside of poker or adjacent to poker. I guess like every time I succeed in any capacity, it gives me confidence to keep going. I mean, it's a challenging game. It was something I like to say, is you know, whenever something happens where you know someone would be mowing their bad luck or complain or whatever, I just say, it's the life I chose. You know, there's trade offs to everything, and part of what you're rightly pointing out about, you know, a luxury of the poker player lifestyle is that, yeah, I don't have to get up every day and go to a traditional job, and I'm very grateful for that because it has just never suited me to live that way. On the other hand, yeah, those trade offs that you know, you can have a losing year or deeply question your abilities or feel out classed or whatever it is that comes with the territory. What's the longest losing streak you've had or the sort of the lowest point that you've that you've sort of, I don't know, ended up in and what did it take to turn that around? It's usually about a year and a half is sort of the longest stretch I've had. It's after a few times. You're saying it like this happened multiple times. It has, Yeah, it definitely has. And then the second question was like what got me out of it? Yeah, like, I mean, the easiest answer is, yeah, I won two million and then all of a sudden I was back. But clearly it's probably not as simple as it looks. Well. One thing that I feel very strongly about is that in any prolonged downswing I've had, there was something like I was just not seeing things. Clearly, there was a part that I played in it. I was not a victim. I was just playing bad or wrong about something. And I feel making whatever mind set shift that was pertinent at the time really helped unlock that for me. Was it a real time sort of assessment or was it a hindsight assessment? Uh no, No, it was a real time thing where I would recognize I'm doing something wrong, I'm thinking about things incorrectly, and then getting rid of that or shifting it is probably a better way to say it. Transforming it. We're just free up emotional bandwidth. It would free up space in my head that I maybe didn't even know was there, leading into you know, that prolonged down swing. But it's fascinating because in the grand scheme of like poker's lifelong sort of sample size, especially when it comes to live poker, you know, the people that have played online sessions or you know, gone to a million hand downswing or whatever the case may be, they might hear this and say, like, you haven't even scratched the surface yet on what a downswing could be, and whatever it is that turned it around, it is probably much more variance than it is application. Yes, I'm very familiar with this view and perspective, and it's one that I held for a long time. If I'm speaking honestly about my experience and someone says well, well that's because of X, Y and Z, I can't like overrule it and say, well, I'm sure this is true because this is my experience, like it can be true for me and someone else can still feel that it's objectively dubious, right, But stepping aside from that, slightly. I am skeptical. I'll say that ontological randomness is a thing, that randomness truly as a concept, is baked into reality. I feel that there is there are reasons that things unfold and happen the way they do, and I'm deeply intrigued by looking for those reasons. And I feel like, irrespective of whether I'm right about my skepticism, there taking ownership over your experiences and looking for ways to improve, I don't see any downside to that. I feel that that is a net benefit for anyone who walks that path. When you become aware of being in that sort of downward spiral, you know, as far as your play goes or or your mindset, do you have specific things you then sort of recenter with, like maybe like some you know, hardcore study hours or additional meditation or long hikes in the wilderness to perhaps have a reset moment. I think all those things can be helpful. I think of those as you know, they're sort of all tools. Right, Sometimes doing more is not always the best answer. Sometimes doing more is what gets you there in the first place. You continually are looking for things to placate this uncertainty about you know, when will things change? Will they change? Sometimes just accepting it and just being grateful for what you already have is the way to shift things. So if it speaks to the individual who's in that case, I mean sometimes you do have to be also realistic about the fact, like, hey, maybe I am strategically lacking, Like if you're consistently blundering in situations where you know you're heers are not like they understand what these strategies look like and how to effectively implement them. I mean clearly that's that's a cause for concern. So, yeah, that would be one example of where studying would be effective. If you generally have a good grasp on the game and there's sort of more subtle aspects at play, then maybe backing off that and yeah, going on a hike or doing some mindfulness practices would be a more effective way to you know, extricate yourself from the downswing. I know you've coached Landon Tice, who I've talked with the studio recently, and he mentioned you as like one of his mentors and how much he he valued that. But where does someone at your level go for for for coaching or for help? Is there is there like another tier of people or do you have one specific person in your phone that is able to walk you through situations like is there is there coaching for guys at your level? I mean I haven't had what you would define as coaching in that sense in a very long time for poker like strategy related stuff. But I am very fortunate that I have a lot of friends that I can bounce ideas off of, and some people are more skilled a you know, certain things than others. So like Steven Chidwick is a close friend and I can, you know, bounce ideas off of him, although I actually don't really talk to him as much about strategy because I mean, at this point you can, for myself or any other pro you can ask other people about strategy questions, and that's totally valid. But when you have, you know, the solver readily available, you can plug it in and then anything that someone else is going to tell you, unless you're asking like a specific thing about a specific player, like how would you maybe proceed in the spot against this guy based on what you know? What do you think his assumptions might be? That's a little bit more granular and different. Barring that nuance you can look at the output and just sort of understand or you know, no locket or whatver, and just be like, Okay, this is kind of what is presenting here. How do I think that might have shifted? But anyway, point being, I'm just very fortunate and grateful to have a lot of friends in the space, and if I need help or want clarity about something, I can just ask them, and you know, I would hope they would feel the same willingness to do that with me if so desired. So when you sort of transpose yourself to like this situation where you were coaching Landon, what was it that he needed or perhaps other students that you've had, what do what do students need if you coach them? That would. Make coaching necessary as opposed to the approach you just mentioned where you can note lock something, We're going to run through some solvers and you know, feel satisfied to start to keep moving forward. Yeah, I mean with Landon, it was a bit different because he was like around the time that I would have been I guess you could say coaching, although it was never really like a traditional arrangement. We were friends already and he was transitioning from cash games to tournaments, So I was mostly just kind of sharing tournament ideas. But to your question about like what is coaching offer someone, I think a lot of times it's really just pinpointing the aspects of their thought process or understanding that they themselves cannot identify, either through just the experience they have in the game, or sometimes we don't necessarily want to look at at certain things. And I think ideally one plays poker and kind of a holistic fashion where you don't really want to ignore anything that's going on when you're at the table or that you're thinking about, like it all kind of ties in together. I think this is probably part of like a broader I guess you could call it chem set life philosophy. But separation is kind of just an illusion, you know, we create separation between things, but there's just like reality is one thing, like you are your experience, So just figuring out where you might be miscalibrated or out of alignment or what have you outside of the table, and then of course strategically as well. Again I just feel very I guess gifted in that sense. I strategy just kind of made sense to me not to be pompous or whatever. But it just it just it felt like once I got a grasp on it, I was like, oh yeah, balance, Okay, I don't know, just yeah, a lot of it made sense, and I I was pleased to see that some of the early ideas I had were sort of validated by solvers, and then some were up ended as well, Like some things I just did not get correct. So yeah, do you think there's there's traps in people studying and using solvers and perhaps not using them the right way and leading them down like the wrong path, or perhaps down a path where they might not improve as much because they focus on the wrong things. Definitely, And I think that's one of the traps I fell into, was just feeling as if these outputs are like gospel. I mean, that's not a helpful approach because well, just ignores the reality of how they were created and how they can shift. So I think if one is too rigid, that's a problem because eventually you're going to encounter a spot where you almost feel like this sort of egoic sense of entitlement, Hey I should have won this or you should have folded that hand, and it's just like hey, bro, like that's reality. And you went up against it and you didn't you couldn't accept it, and then you know, you got crushed. So I think that's one thing that can cause issues. Other than that, I don't know, you know, it's an interesting question, like take someone like Jesse, who I think's been kind of open about the fact that he doesn't use or value solvers. You know, would him taking the time to do something that he's not interested in help him. I'm inclined to think no, even if the data or knowledge is valuable. I just think there's many different ways to do things. And I kind of go back to my time playing online. I had used a hot at times, like I heads a display that shows you player stats and whatnot, and basically all of my peers were using it, and there was a time where I just felt like it was too much visual noise and it was taking me out of the moment. And maybe that's like kind of a comparable example where you know, sometimes less is more. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, But when I listen to podcasts with successful individuals, whether it's sports or poker, oftentimes when people describe their experiences, there's a certain element missing where they are privileged by the fact that they were born with a certain talent, you know, running fast, swimming, tennis, or in your case, having the mind to apply yourself well in strategy games and in poker. How big of a factor is is sort of what you were born with in the in the in the context of your success. Uh wow, tough to say. So my father was an engineer. I actually just recently learned that. My mom told me she went to college for three year studying psychology and thought she would have done better in that field than where she ended up in nursing, because it's a more like mental thing. And I was like, oh, wow, that's really interesting. It's like, do you understand that that's a bit ironic because I pursued a mental activity and I've done pretty well at it, which you know, she didn't really catch that either until I brought it up. But it is likely at the very least that, you know, those traits that my parents had were sort of disseminated by osmosis. But there are certain things, and I mean, I don't know, it depends how do you want to go with this, Like is it retrocousal? Like I was always sort of meant to be a poker player, and I was drawn to these activities by virtue of that. But it was extremely interested in all kinds of games and memory in particular as a kid. And obviously that's helpful in poker, not just because it, you know, helps recall strategies, but you know, hand histries, you played against people, and all kinds of stuff. So there are definitely things that I do think I was sort of I guess you could say, genetically predisposed or environmentally predisposed to that helped with poker. And there are certain things where I did sort of have to like get up and get after it in a sense that also helped. So you when you like are first learning about solvers, when the solver era sort of started and you got access to to use one. What did that look like? Was it exploratory? Was it someone who you know got into that before you teaching you how to use them? And did that then lead to sort of the way I see it, maybe back in the day when you guys used to play online was like NonStop, round the clock multi tabling stuff like that. Was it sort of that? But then in the solver world give some insights into when that era sort of started coming along. It's kind of funny. So yeah, I did have friends who got into them before me, and they were pretty pumped about it, and I was intrigued. I remember the first solver that I became familiar with was Poker Snowy. I don't think it was a CFR based kind of factual regret minimization program. It was it was some sort of algorithm that created solutions in its own way. Maybe it was a version of CFR, but I thought it was interesting how it suggested playing preflop with different hands. And then soon after that, like more like the solvers that are kind of still around to this day, were commonly used by you know, various pros came around, and at that point I was on a pretty big upswing and was being stubborn and I just wasn't really that interested. It also didn't help that one of my friends should be an early version where there was clearly some bug and the solow was just saying to fold the nut straight. I was just like, yeah, I don't need this, like I'm doing well right now. So that would have been like around twenty sixteen, and I sort of prolonged my exposure to them. I also had a lot of other life stuff going on around this time. It was unclear to me if I was going to stick with poker. I got on a very big down swing, and yeah, I was just sort of going through some growing pains in my life generally speaking. And then around twenty nineteen I was like, Okay, I should pursue this. This is valuable, and I did. And then when COVID hit, I really got deeper into it. And that was one of the ways that Land and I bonded because he was using these tools a lot as sort of part of the younger generation that grew up with them or grew up in poker with them, you know, sort of eventually came to value them, and then I went too far the other way. And then, you know, I speak from experience when I say feeling that you know these are our gospel type truths or the downsides of that rigidity. Those are all firsthand experiences that I lived and had to come to terms with, because when you don't know that they exist, and you come from an era like I did, where you can ruminate about a hand for a while and often come to the sort of crux of the decision, it's like, well, if he would have done this with as eight, then it's probably you know, a good play, and if not, then it's a bad play. And the solvers just give you that right away. So the incredible power that they contained within that ability to process data and output solutions, I was like, Wow, this is really cool, and that really got me excited about exploring them very deeply. And then yeah, I just went too far with it, which I've probably done with many things in my life. And then I you know, found a middle ground and now I feel that, you know, like with most things, just finding a balance is healthy. For televised poker, we're in a very weird situation where if it's the cash game, it's organized by a person and he brings his friends if the stakes are high enough, and that type of entertainment will get tens of thousands of people watching in real time, myself included, because of the unpredictable nature of the characters and the amount of money that's on the table and you know, all the little sort of side randomness and factors and drinking and whatnot that's happening at the table. And then the contrast to that would be the you know, as some of people have called it the math contest, you know PGD event final tables where on day one, and we've shown this on stream also on day one, it is casual, it is laid back, people are joking, having fun, and then when the final table starts, it's quiet and obviously there's lots of thinking happening, but it is not outwardly. It is inwardly and it becomes very mechanical. Is this just how poker is now? Where the cash games give us a chance to watch peel back to curtain on what that sort of high stakes world is like. And then on the contrary, we have the tournament universe, where the focus is much more so on the who's best prepared for the situation. And then of course the amount of money at stake varies from event to events. But that contrast could not be any bigger. Right now now, I completely agree. I'm glad you brought it up, because I've actually thought about this a lot. I think the main thing that's going on there is in cash games, in order to get a seat and be in that juicy game, you have to be entertaining, and in poker tournaments there's really no incentive to be entertaining, you're probably going to decrease your win rate. If anything. I do like to try. I mean not when I'm like in hands, I'm quite stoic and focused on the task at hand, But in general I like to be social and and just have a good time at the table, you know, So maybe that's entertaining. It's probably not to the same extent, especially when juxtaposed with the fact that during hands I am more focused then players would be in a cash game. It's just a more competitive environment. And if that were to shift in some way, if poker were to, you know, have more exposure or have higher end sponsors or what have you, you know, I would be first in line to be happy to Like basically, if the fans were to vote for who they really wanted to see, then you'd have a lot more incentive and there was benefit to being there outside of just you know, playing the tournament. Is this making sense kind of thinking about it? It's kind of It's kind of like the chicken or the egg, right, because you have to make it entertaining first before sponsors are interested. That's fair. I don't know how much me shifting the way I may it would have to be like a collective effort of course. Yeah, yeah, I think. And and by the way, I'm not saying that you guys should do this, Oh no, I totally understand. I'm just saying that, like as a pivot point, cash games do provide those opportunities because the environment is so different. Yeah, it absolutely is. I think that there's ways to structure tournaments that if you were to set it up solely as a product to be entertaining, you could handpick the field. I mean basically like a TV show. And I think if you go back to the poker boom, those tournaments were immensely entertaining. And I think, you know, probably for most people that came up in that era, if you ask them what the most entertaining poker content they've ever seen, they're gonna say WSOP in the early two thousands, high sakes poker, all the stuff that came out around that time, well, high stakes poker was a cash game. But point being, I don't think tournaments are inherently uninteresting. I just think that they the culture has evolved to favor the more competitive archetype, and cash games have not evolved in that way. Is almost a contrary exactly. It's almost like if you become good at cash games, you don't have any games to play. Well, that's not entirely true, because there are definitely some players in any lineup that you could find where you know, they're very talented players. They just happen to have sort of you know, met the needs essentially of the players that are happy to play those games. And yeah, I mean again, it's just a trade off, you know. It's just a different way to approach being a professional. Nothing right or wrong about it, it's just different. Do you feel as though the high stake tournament community has a responsibility towards non professionals to create an environment that is inviting for them to come and play. Yeah, to an extent, definitely. Some people might say no because they're like, well, they can just not play. But I think got short sighted and I think it kind of misses the mark. I mean, at the end of the day, if enough people stop playing tournaments, tournaments will die. And there's just every reason to be welcoming and inviting to all players, but especially the ones that are just kind of there to have a good time. I mean, if you're a pro, you clearly want that player in the field. So I don't like the I'm not sure even to what extent this is reality versus just sort of image. Imagine it's in my mind and fabricated. But like I used to play a lot of cash games in Vegas. When the game's got more privatized, I just didn't really want to deal with the schmoozing and the politics and whatever. I think it's fair to not want to do that, but to just be like a reasonable person, just be nice to people that turn up to play cards. Well, I mean sure, I think that's there's every reason to do that. Does that make sense? Yeah? No. And I also think that we can't understate, for those who've never been to the Pogogo studio how laid back, in casual that atmosphere actually is. That's true, yeah, which which is like, again, as we talk about contrast, a big contrast with the politicking of high stakes cash. And also a big contrast with the way that the final tables look when it's like, okay, well you've played now for twelve hours on day one or whatever, and then you're at the final table vying for you know, the real money. So this is a very jovial atmosphere on the first day, in the first I would say, the first half of the first day, and it gets progressively more serious, but it's really always just fun. And that's one of the reasons I love the new stream format, the reality TV style format. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. Shout out to Donnie for that and Antonio for making it happen. Any love that. It's been a fun insight and it attracts the hardcore fans who just want to see a little more. And it has that reality TV element to it, which was yeah, funny. It's not polished at all, and I get that that's not going to create the next poker boom, but I do feel that something that kind of like gets under the hood a little bit more like Again, I just look back at those early WSOP episodes and effectively was a reality TV show and it created a pop culture phenomena. Right now, there was other things going on, the boom of online poker, moneymaker himself being such an enigma and winning. Yeah, there was other factors, but I do think that style of content, the way it was packaged and created, it also helped. With the guy that put it together had nine Emmys so you know that's not gonna hurt, but yeah, there's just a lot going on there that's, you know, just very different than what we have now. Your poker world, from your perspective that you sort of operate within, do you feel as though that has gotten smaller? Like you play at the studio, you have your group of friends you talk to. Do you still venture out, do you still like meet new people, go to new places? And how important do you think that is or could be in order for you to have a good understanding of where the poker world as a whole is currently sitting at. It's a good question I would like to think. I mean, you know, again, always want to think they have clarity about things, but I would like to think I have a pretty decent understanding of the way that poker is seen in the wider world. I am pretty social in my life generally, and I like talking to people about things. When I run into people who are familiar with poker, it is very common that they either know it from the boom or they follow someone on Instagram that is like a larger name. Occasionally it'll be like, you know, like they've seen Wolfgang Shorts on YouTube or yeah, just a few people on Instagram that you know, just have larger audiences that you know, may never step foot in a tournament environment. Do you have a good sense of where poker is right now? Because people love to love to throw these things at are like, oh this is good for poker, or oh this if this thing happens, well that's going to be a game changer. But instead, I think we often forget to take a step back and appreciate how poker is sort of intertwined and across all starsian media platforms, and if people get exposed to it much more than they've ever been, there's surely a level of saturation when it comes to the amount of content that's available, which perhaps fragments attention a little bit. But ultimately for you as a player, I wonder how you perceive that. Yeah, I think that poker obviously it's gone through a lot. I still feel to some extent that we're living in the shadows of Black Friday. I don't think we've fully recovered from that. And that's just because the boom was such a prolific era where we just don't have that same kind of atmosphere, not in like a you know, hey, you're at this table having a good time atmosphere, I mean, like a sort of meta atmosphere for the way the game is. I would love to see poker be at the level of golfer tennis. I don't see why it can't be. To be honest with you, I have some ideas of what necessary shifts would be. In some sense, it would be the style of content that Donnie is pioneering there. But yeah, I don't I clearly don't have all the answers. Well, what do you what do you if you mentioned the golf, for example, or other sports, what do you miss in poker that those sports have? Well? I do think luxury sponsors is one, like if you cater to and poker already does cater to higher net worth individuals, So to me, it's kind of a mismatch, Like, why is that not happening? Well, it's because there's not enough viewers to justify the sponsors giving money to the hosts, right. The platform is hosting content, So yeah, I mean there's there's certainly reasons for that. What they are exactly, you know, I can't say I'm not I'm not in that role, but I also think i'm less sure about this, and this would you know, relate to what you're talking about with tournaments especially, But I do feel that poker, probably for its growth, is slightly held back by being associated with gambling. It is basically gambling to a very large extent, but it also has a distinctly different quality, which is that it's a mind sport. In my opinion, I don't know, I could imagine a world in which poker sort of like again extricates itself from gambling, and there'd be pros and concept there's going to be trade offs to anything, but yeah, I feel that could potentially be a you know, positive thing for the growth of the game. Do you think we should be allowed to view poker as entertainment even though it's a zero sum game, which in a way can sort of be a contrast to the entertainment side because there's also losers in poker, which you know, in golf, if you're a loser, you're still on the tour, you're still getting paid, and in poker people show up and put their own money down, which you know, makes it a different kind of entertainment and almost more like reality TV. Well, not only do I think that it should like people can't like should be able to view it that way. I think that's actually the best way to view it, because people play poker for enjoyment primarily, so I don't see any reason why watching it shouldn't be enjoyable, just in the same way that somebody plays golf for fun watches golf for fun. So I think it's actually just much healthier if it's you know, experienced in that way. That being said, if we just sort of go back to the obvious follow up question, which is like, well, why are tournament's not enjoyable to watch? I enjoy watching them, but I understand that they don't resonate with a wider audience. I think some of that is well, I mean, some of it's based on the fact that, you know, the format of streams. They're long, and like people that aren't hardcore fans, they can't sit down and watch streams for that long. So yeah, I don't know. Again, I don't have all the answers, but I've thought about these things because I love poker. I think it's immensely fascinating. I think it would be cool if more people were aware of it, whether or not they ever play a hand, just being aware of it, I think could be cool. I think there's implications for education and learning critical thinking and navigate uncertainty that poker offers. I know there was one guy I researched this a while ago, many years, but there was a Harvard law professor who used poker as a means to sort of help his students understand decision making. I thought that was super cool, and there's probably more avenues for which that could be effective or beneficial. But again, I feel it's you know, when poker has a close association with gambling, which again, it obviously has a component of gambling, but I think it's somewhat intellectually dishonest to assert that it's the same as gambling in the sense that like Blacktacker roulettea craps would be clearly it's different. In my opinion, I would presume you agree with that, but yeah, yeah, of course. And I also think that we shouldn't forget to state that like the Marquee events year round draw a massive viewership totally. It is just that, you know, to use other sports as an example, the weekly game that's being streamed doesn't draw this same way the the you know, the Masters you know, as if you want to use a golf analogy will draw, which also makes sense that there's there's sort of a tail off. But the thing that I find most fascinating is the and we went into this already, but the higher floor for a cash game versus a tournament. And I think that's the biggest difference that we're seeing in recent years, where I want to say, prior to the YouTube era, the tournaments were way more featured and way more popular, and then in the YouTube era, something has shifted to where cash games by nature attract personalities within the game that make it super fun to consume because the narrative doesn't change overnight, it stays the same within the boundaries of that lineup, as opposed to the elimination factor of the tournament. So if you're watching because you're a fan of er Liechtenberger and he busts in sixth place, then maybe you're tuned out after that. Yeah, no, that's fair. I think that one thing cash games really do offer in that sense, you know, when a game is being streamed, cash games move a lot faster, there's less downtime. I think that's where, again, as like a poker nerd who in the in like the early sort of boom era, I was like, Hi, I wonder what these guys would do with like Jack ten offsuit in the spot or whatever. The stream is great, you get to see all that, but I'm not sure that the casual viewer is going to resonate in the same sense that you know, someone who's a diehard would be. So I think that the stream, I would guess streaming is less favorable for tournament views as a result of that. That downtime is I think probably why people, you know, they fairly point out like, hey, we're not interested in this, Like I mean, you see in the comment sections, right, people are just what was the term you said? Is a math contest? Right? Math contest? Yeah? By the way, I think I think Alex Foxon used the term first. So I want to give credit, but you know, it's not in a negative sense because it just means that people are, you know, well prepared for the occasion. Yeah. Sure, but it's also you need to have a certain level of poker understanding to get to get something out of that. Yeah. And I think that. After more than fifteen years in the game for me myself and having done tons of commentary. I do find those very fun and interesting, but they become more fun and interesting when that environment also has a certain level of personality to it. So you guys could be playing exactly the same hands, the same exact way, and then if you add a Jeremy Becker, who is you know, making a bit of a show or Nigranu is there just a name to people that come to mind right away, that same style of play becomes more fun to watch. I totally agree, and I do think that I would say most of the best players in the studio are quite entertaining, super entertaining, like Foxen's hilarious Soveral absolutely uproariously hilarious, Winter's hilarious Becker. Obviously, I mean, yeah, there's many people that are like, very funny and have a lot of personality, but when you have a stream that's quite long, those moments and also, I mean, in fairness, I don't know that the stream is being put on to capture those entertaining moments as like, I mean, you'd know better than me, but it doesn't feel to me like the desire of those PGT final tables is to capture the entertaining moments. I'm sure that it's nice when they happen, but the specific goal is not like, hey, let's encourage I mean, guess it's not really much you could do to encourage them, but to capture or highlight them. I think it is more intriguing for probably most of the people that are watching tournaments to begin with, and it is the chicken in the egg, right, we're back there. They probably more so want to see the sick call or the big bluff or whatever. Yeah, And I think that the funny thing that ties into what you're saying is the fact that fun moments happen on every stream, but there's not the like you can't plan for them, and they're they're organic, which is why the short short form version of it will go viral because that's like funny, and that's like, yeah, compelling, But the long form format needs to be compelling in different ways to keep people watching, which, of course, you deal with the way the game runs, and that's just sometimes how that goes, and that's fine totally, and you can't always hit a home run. Yeah, but I find it endlessly fascinating to speculate on what formats could be tested and what sort of tweaks. Could there be to the point where you know, the regular start protesting like this is no longer poker. Yeah, I mean these are these are interesting points to bring up. Far be it from me to say I know the answer, because I don't. I'm not a nostrodamus. I don't know if he knew the answers. But like the model that worked during the boom was basically just to cut it up and make effectively a reality show. They had these vignettes. I have a friend who have talked about this a lot with and if you see like an America's Got Talent or the Voice type of show, Shark Tank's a good example. You know, they have like a person, they show a little bit of stuff like they do in their life, and then they have like a key moment or two with them and now they're a character. You might come back to them, but then you go to like another vignette. I feel that's a very digestible format of content for poker, and I think it suits it quite well because for a long time, my sister in law actually is a reality TV show producer. I talked to her a bit about it, and I asked her like, you know, if I'm playing and like you put on the stream, like, can you get into it? She's like no. I'm like yeah, okay, I mean I'm not surprised. And you know, it's the same with people that are just casual fans of the game. But if the content, I understand, it's completely different endeavor. You mean, you have to go into post production and you have to like go send someone out to like interview them and get shots of them on the couch or in their backyard or whatever. It's completely different. That's not lost on me. But I do think that that approach is just more well suited for poker because the sport itself, if you want to call it a sport, a mind sport, as I think of it, it doesn't really that easily lend itself to being entertaining from a spectator standpoint if you're just watching the raw footage. Could we evolve poker tournaments or poker in general in a way where you could get like a stadium of fans. To me, it's conceivable, but we're kind of not really. To me, that's like a far fetched goal. At the moment. I think just getting viewership up and having more people be aware of pokercause a lot of people that I talk to about poker, because again, I really do make an effort when I go out in the world and I, like, you know, meet people and they say what do you do, and I say, I play poker. A lot of people cannot tell the difference between poker and blackjack. To them, it's just the same thing. It's cards you're betting. I just think, you know, for starters, that would be cool if there was a distinction between that in just the public consciousness of humanity. Really or we should stream more Blackcheck for that. Intuition in Blackchack could be useful. Who knows. I mean we we already have those mixed events, so I hold them plo, yeah, hold them Blackcheck. I mean they run bakara tournaments, right, yeah, why not slot tournament? You can do it all. Andrew Luzeberger, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And we'll have to start Poker Dads, the podcast. I'm down. There's so many people that we could have on the show. One hundred. Everyone's a dad now, yeah. Everybody used to be a twenty one year old basement kid and everyone has children. It's kind of crazy. It's great, good evolution. Once again, Andre luiz Berger, thank you so much for being on the show. You guys at home, please like the video, subscribe to the channel. We've got a lot more of these coming in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for more, and for now, thanks for watching.